1967–1987: Strategic cooperation In 1967, Israel's victory in the
Six-Day War and subsequent occupation of the
Sinai and the
West Bank alienated it diplomatically from much of the
Third World and
Sub-Saharan Africa, whose
nationalist movements began to view Israel as a
colonial state. At the same time, Israel became the object of admiration among parts of the South African white population, particularly among the country's political and military leadership. An editorial in
Die Burger, then the mouthpiece of the South African NP, declared: "Israel and South Africa... are engaged in a struggle for existence... The anti-Western powers have driven Israel and South Africa into a community of interests which had better be utilized than denied." The government of
John Vorster permitted South African civilian and paramilitary volunteers to travel to Israel, and permitted the expansion of Zionist organising and fundraising inside South Africa. Efforts were made, particularly on the South African side, to strengthen trade and commercial contacts, facilitated by an Israeli–South African Friendship League and an Israel–South Africa Trade Association, both established in 1968. By April 1971,
C. L. Sulzberger had observed "a remarkably close if little known partnership" between the countries. Yet Israel continued to pursue friendship with Sub-Saharan Africa, and, in a final expression of this strategy, in 1971, it offered $2,850 in aid to the
Organization of African Unity's fund for liberation movements. The donation was rejected, but not before it severely irked the South African government. The 1973
Yom Kippur War, however, came with "the near-complete collapse of Israel's position in Africa." By the end of 1973, all but four African states had severed diplomatic relations with Israel. This was partly due to the 1973
oil embargo instituted by the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries against Israel's Western partners, which reinforced a new alliance between the Arab and Sub-Saharan African states. According to
Naomi Chazan, the oil embargo also created a partial rupture in Israel's relations with the West. After 1973, Israel sought closer ties with South Africa, a decision which has often been analysed as a pragmatic response to the former's increased international isolation – supported by what journalist
Thomas Friedman describes as its newfound "'
realpolitik' attitude that Israel has too few friends in the world to be choosey about its partners in trade and arms sales". A related but somewhat different interpretation posits a concerted effort to shore up a strategic tripartite alliance between South Africa, Israel, and the United States. This arrangement would have supported the American policy of
containment in Africa, according to the
Economist by allowing the United States to use Israel "as a clandestine conduit to South Africa" amid escalating public and international condemnation of the South African regime. The interests of South African Jews also remained an avowed foreign policy concern of the Israeli government.
Diplomatic and political cooperation At the UN General Assembly in the 1970s, Israel abstained from some key votes affecting South Africa, such as the vote on granting
observer status to the
African National Congress (ANC) in 1972, and votes against apartheid in later years. South Africa returned the favour by abstaining from a vote which condemned the
Israeli annexation of
East Jerusalem. For the most part, however, and like many other Western nations at the time, Israel remained officially opposed to the apartheid system, while privately it cultivated relations with South Africa, and generally did not impose or enforce sanctions. In early 1974, the same year that South Africa's credentials to the UN General Assembly were rejected, Israel upgraded its South African legation to an embassy. The following year, South Africa upgraded its Tel Aviv legation – established as a consulate in 1972 – to an embassy. In April 1976, Prime Minister Vorster made a
state visit to Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin in Israel. Later in 1976, South Africa and Israel concluded a
comprehensive cooperation pact, to be implemented by a joint ministerial committee. The contents of the agreement were not made public but appeared to be extensive and broad, covering both military and economic cooperation. Initially, due to a desire to downplay its intimacy with Pretoria, the Israeli government reportedly prohibited ministerial visits to South Africa. And South Africa's apartheid policies continued to cause tension: in 1978, there was a "diplomatic incident" when Israel's ambassador to South Africa, Yitzak Unna, announced he was boycotting
Golda, a play about Golda Meir's life, because it was being staged at a whites-only theatre. At least ten other Western ambassadors joined the boycott, and Meir herself said she fully supported Unna's decision. However, high-level diplomatic contact increased into the 1980s, especially after a
Likud coalition came to power in Israel in 1977 – the new Prime Minister,
Menachem Begin, was the chairman of the Israel–South Africa Friendship League.'''''' Bilateral visits were reportedly made, formally or informally, by, among others, South African Information Minister
Connie Mulder (1974), South African Foreign Minister
Pik Botha (1979, 1984), Israeli
Finance Minister Simcha Erlich (February 1978), and (secretly) Israeli
Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann (March 1980). Israel also developed ties with South Africa's nominally independent
"homelands". However,
El Al, the Israeli national carrier, was able to operate flights between the two cities via
Nairobi. The cultural and demographic ties between the two countries also manifested in sports. According to Itamar Dubinsky, Israeli sports institutions and athletes circumvented the sports sanctions against the apartheid regime because of professional, Zionist, and national interests.
Military cooperation In the 1970s, Israel aided the
National Liberation Front of Angola proxy forces organized and trained by South Africa and the CIA to forestall the formation of a government led by the
MPLA during the
Angolan Civil War. Israel sent a plane full of 120 mm shells sent via Zaire to the FNLA and
Unita and a shipment of 50 SA-7 missiles. By 1973, an economic and military alliance between Israel and South Africa was in the ascendancy. The military leadership of both countries was convinced that both nations faced a fundamentally similar predicament, fighting for their survival against the common enemy of the PLO and the ANC. Within less than a decade, South Africa would be one of Israel's closest military and economic allies, whilst Israel would occupy the position of South Africa's closest military ally, and Israel had become the most important foreign arms supplier to the
South African Defence Force (SADF). Israeli and South African intelligence chiefs held regular conferences with each other to share information on enemy weapons and training. The co-ordination between the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the SADF was unprecedented, with Israeli and South African generals giving each other unfettered access to each other's battlefields and military tactics, and Israel sharing with South Africa highly classified information about its missions, such as
Operation Opera, which had previously only been reserved for the United States. Israel was one of the most important allies in South Africa's weapons procurement during the years of PW Botha's regime. During
Operation Protea in 1981, the SADF made military history, as arguably the first user of modern drone technology, when it operated the Israeli
IAI Scout drones in combat in Angola. They would only be used in combat by the Israel Defense Forces a year later during the
1982 Lebanon War and
Operation Mole Cricket 19. In 1981, Israeli Defence Minister
Ariel Sharon visited South African forces in
South West Africa for 10 days, The
RSA-2 was a local copy of the Jericho II ballistic missile and the
RSA-1 was a local copy of the Jericho II second stage for use as a mobile missile.
Alleged nuclear collaboration From the mid-1970s, the two countries were allegedly involved in joint nuclear-weapons development and testing. According to
Seymour Hersh, for example, the 1979
Vela incident was the third joint Israeli–
South African nuclear test in the Indian Ocean.
Richard Rhodes concludes the incident was an
Israeli nuclear test, conducted in cooperation with South Africa, and that the United States administration deliberately obscured this fact in order to avoid complicating relations with Israel. South Africa provided much of the
yellowcake uranium that Israel required to develop its nuclear weapons. South Africa built
its own nuclear bombs, possibly with Israeli assistance. Some Resolutions of the UN General Assembly in the early 1980s which condemned the cooperation between Israel and Apartheid South Africa, also mentioned nuclear collaboration.
U.S. Intelligence believed that Israel participated in South African nuclear research projects and supplied advanced non-nuclear weapons technology to South Africa during the 1970s, while South Africa was developing its own atomic bombs. According to
David Albright, "Faced with sanctions, South Africa began to organize clandestine procurement networks in Europe and the United States, and it began a long, secret collaboration with Israel." He goes on to say "A common question is whether Israel provided South Africa with weapons design assistance, although available evidence argues against significant cooperation."
Chris McGreal has written that "Israel provided expertise and technology that was central to South Africa's development of its nuclear bombs". In 2000,
Dieter Gerhardt,
Soviet spy and former commander in the South African Navy, stated that Israel agreed in 1974 to arm eight
Jericho II missiles with "special warheads" for South Africa. According to journalist
Seymour Hersh, the 1979 Vela incident, was the third joint Israeli-South African nuclear weapons test in the Indian Ocean, and the Israelis had sent two
IDF ships and "a contingent of Israeli military men and nuclear experts" for the test. Author
Richard Rhodes also concludes the incident was an Israeli nuclear test, conducted in cooperation with South Africa, and that the United States administration deliberately obscured this fact in order to avoid complicating relations. In 2010,
The Guardian reported that newly declassified South African documents uncovered by academic Sasha Polakow-Suransky showed details of a meeting on 31 March 1975 between the two countries' defence ministers, at the time South African
P. W. Botha and Israeli
Shimon Peres, in which Peres purportedly offered South Africa "three sizes." The report suggested that the "three sizes" referred to nuclear warheads, but the deal never materialised. Backed by former minister
Yossi Beilin, Peres said the allegations were untrue and based on a selective interpretation of the minutes. Former apartheid foreign minister Pik Botha, as well as various Israeli insiders and experts, also said the allegations were highly improbable. Later, in 1991, as apartheid was drawing to a close, Botha continued to maintain that allegations of nuclear cooperation were "a figment of the imagination of someone". Avner Cohen, author of
Israel and the Bomb and ''The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb'', said, "Nothing in the documents suggests there was an actual offer by Israel to sell nuclear weapons to the regime in
Pretoria."
1987–1994: Sanctions against South Africa By 1987, Israel found itself the only developed nation in the world that still maintained strong
relations with South Africa. Since 1974, this relationship had been mentioned and condemned by various international organisations and, several times, in the UN General Assembly. According to the
New York Times, the Israeli Cabinet "made no attempt to hide the fact" that its decision was being made in response to political pressure from the United States.'''''' South African Foreign Minister
Pik Botha downplayed it as "clearly a direct result of pressure by the United States". In September 1987, under further American pressure and ahead of another review by Congress, Israel imposed ten economic and cultural sanctions against South Africa, including bans on new investments and on governmental, scientific, sports, and cultural exchanges. Israeli diplomat
Alon Liel later recalled South African President
P.W. Botha was surprised and outraged by the decision. However, because the sanctions did not apply retroactively to agreements already made, some exchanges continued – for example, in 1990, bilateral trade was worth $317 million, with Israel incurring a $125 million trade deficit because of the restrictions on its exports to South Africa.
1991–1994: Normalisation The sanctions remained in place until
negotiations to end apartheid were underway in South Africa: on July 14, 1991, Israel lifted its sanctions, four days after the United States had done the same. In November of that year, Botha's successor,
F.W. De Klerk made a
state visit to Israel, and he and Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir agreed to normalise relations. During that visit, the countries' foreign ministers – Pik Botha in South Africa and
David Levy in Israel – signed a
memorandum of understanding to facilitate increased cooperation in science, culture, industry, agriculture, tourism, commerce, and other fields. Botha said publicly that neither the agreement nor general Israeli–South African relations would include military cooperation, because the latter "belong[ed] to the past". Over the next two years, there was reportedly strain between the Israeli embassy in South Africa and De Klerk's government, as the Israeli ambassador focused his diplomatic and political outreach on the ascendant black leaders of the ANC. == 1994–2018: Post-apartheid strain ==